Here is how and why the unmasking occurred:
ROONEY: And just to be clear, the section of the FISA that is expiring later this year, that's 702, which will be talking about a little bit, cannot be used to target U.S. persons or persons in the United States, is that correct?
ROGERS: Yes sir.
ROONEY: Section 702 focuses on non-U.S. persons outside the United States, primarily correct?
ROGERS: Yes sir.
ROONEY: Do you believe that the section 702 is important and valuable for U.S. national security?
ROGERS: Yes sir.
ROONEY: So it's safe to say that without having this tool, it would be a threat to our national security?
ROGERS: It would significantly impact my ability to generate the insights that I believe this nation needs.
ROONEY: In the media, there's a lot of reporting about something called incidental collection. Can you talk about what incidental collection is?
ROGERS: Yes sir. Incidental collection is when we are targeting a valid foreign target, for example, in the course of that targeting we either get a reference to a U.S. person or suddenly a U.S. person appears as part of the conversation. That's what we call incidental collecting.
Rogers then explains what is done in such a case that the U.S. person appears to be engaged in criminal activity with the foreign target.
ROGERS: In our reporting then we will mask the identity of the individual. We use a phrase like U.S. person one or U.S. person two. And I would remind everyone that for our purposes, U.S. person is defined very broadly. That is not just a U.S. citizen, that is a U.S. corporation, that is a ship or aircraft that is registered in the United States, that is an Internet protocol address, for example.
A lot of discussion follows about the protocols for unmasking such a person.
Then Trey Gowdy has a swing at Rogers. Instead of focusing on the fact that General Flynn was colluding with the Russians about the sanctions during the transition, Gowdy gets his panties in a wad that this treasonous activity was made known to the public!
GOWDY: In January of this year, the Washington Post reported, according to a senior U.S. government official, a named U.S. citizen -- and I will not use the name -- a named U.S. citizen phoned the Russian ambassador several times on December 29.
In February of this year, the Washington Post reported nine, nine current and former officials who were in senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the call, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters and that officials began pouring over intelligence reports, intercepted communications, and diplomatic cables.
In February of this year, the New York Times reported a U.S. citizen, whose name I will not use, discusses sanctions with the Russian ambassador in a phone call according to officials who have seen a transcript of the wiretapped conversation. And again in February of this year, the New York Times reported on a phone call involving a U.S. citizen including significant discussions of phone records, intercepted calls, intercepted communications, and reported the NSA captured calls and then asked the FBI to collect as much information as possible.
My time is up so I will say this for this round. I thought it was against the law to disseminate classified information. Is it?
COMEY: Yes, sir. It's a serious crime. I'm not going to comment on those particular articles because I don't want to, in any circumstance, compound a criminal act by confirming that it was classified information but in general, yes, it's a serious crime and it should be for the reasons you said.
